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Museum Store Company : The Finest Selection of Historic and Museum Jewelry, Art History Replicas and Museum Reproductions! Own a Piece of History...Give a Piece of History (tm) MuseumStoreCompany.com | |  | Kauai | Home » » » » » » » The Ultimate Kauai Guidebook: Kauai Revealed | | | | | | | Description: | | The finest guidebook ever written for Kauai and the only one written by a writer who anonymously reviews the island. He visits every beach, restaurant, activity and trail on the island. The result is this comprehensive, humorous and easy-to-read full color guide that will lead you to more adventures than any other book. A must for travelers. | | | Product Details: | | | Author:
| Andrew Doughty | | Paperback:
| 260 pages | | Publisher:
| Wizard Publications Inc. | | Publication Date:
| October 15, 2008 | | Language:
| English | | ISBN:
| 0981461018 | | Product Length:
| 0.75 inches | | Product Width:
| 5.5 inches | | Product Height:
| 8.75 inches | | Product Weight:
| 1.07 pounds | | Package Length:
| 8.2 inches | | Package Width:
| 5.6 inches | | Package Height:
| 0.8 inches | | Package Weight:
| 0.95 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 139 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
 ( 139 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 12 found the following review helpful:
 Use this guide with cautionSep 17, 2011
By Jan Svejkovsky
My comments are specifically addressing the hiking and snorkeling portions of this guide, which is what we primarily used it for: First, as another review already notes, EVERY tourist on Kauai is walking around with this book, so forget all the comments in it about "having the beach to yourself" or visiting a spot "only a few local hunters know about". Second, in an obvious attempt to separate this guide from others, the author tends to overexaggerate the beauty or uniqueness of many of the "secret" attractions or destinations that his book contains. And that's a serious problem for most of us that have only a limited amount of time on our Kauai vacation and must decide how to spend each day - what to do and what to give up.
Case in point is the book's hiking description to a pair of now-abandoned, mile-long water diversion tunnels blasted through rock near the middle of the island some hundred years ago. Following the guide's directions you drive inland, then hike 2 miles on an unmaintained hunter trail, then hike a mile through the first tunnel...to find yourself in a breathtaking, Shangri La valley! The book estimates 1.5 to 2 hours hike for the first 2 miles on an uneven, potentially muddy trail. What it doesn't reveal is that, even in dry weather, you will be trekking for 2-3 hours each way through troughs of foot or deeper mud the color and consistency of diarrhea! The hike through the tunnel is cool but the narrow valley beyond is not very exciting and the same scenery can be found in many other parts of the Island with much less time and effort. What was initially a "must-do" hike for us based on the book's description turned into a tiring, wasted day of our vacation. Sadly, while sloshing through the mud and brush on our way back we met up with 2 filthy, sweaty couples who also tried to do the hike on the same day (each had their own copy of the revered blue book!) but didn't even make it to the first tunnel due to lack of time (due to the trail condition and elevation changes the book's 1.5 hour timeline is BS for most people)and trail difficulty.
We found similar exaggerations in other parts of the book, including descriptions of snorkeling conditions at some of the beaches. So our advice is to use the guide but make good judgements as to what may be worth doing in the time you have on the Island. Just because the book touts a spot as Paradise on Earth doesn't guarantee it will be there for all your effort.
3 of 3 found the following review helpful:
 Excellent Maps but the info was a little datedMar 06, 2010
By P. Thorne
The maps in this guide book are invaluable to the Kauai traveler. The written sightseeing, activity and dining information was not as accurate as the Lonely Planet guide (which we also purchased.) The book has a website with "updates" but there are still errors and omissions in this book. We ate at a restaurant that this book "panned" and had an excellent experience; we thoroughly enjoyed a Na'pali coast sunset sail with Kauai Sea Tours (this books last choice) et cetera. We used both books to create our own experience - not blindly following the recommendations of one guide.
My overall recommendation - buy the book for the maps but follow your own instincts when exploring Kauai, form your own opinions, make your own choices and have a wonderful experience.
5 of 6 found the following review helpful:
 Like Knowing Your Own Kauai LocalJun 28, 2011
By Carson Budde
This guide book is amazing! We were in Kauai for 7 days and managed to find amazing hikes, adventures and food every day no matter what part of the island we explored. The descriptions for adventures and hikes are in amazing detail! We found ourselves hiking the most amazing (and seemingly untouched) trail overlooking Waimea Canyon and could only have found it with the help of this book since the trail head was unmarked on a back country road.
The descriptions of the sights on Kauai are realistic and are presented in a humorous way that makes reading the book interesting as well as informational. We only doubted the book once on a restaurant and soon found out never to challenge the wisdom again... sigh. If anyone of my friends or relatives were going to travel to Kauai this would be the first item I would recommend they get (the second and third being sunscreen and a nice raincoat for the quickly changing weather)!
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
Not as good as previous editionsMay 04, 2011
By Jae Pfeffer
"JPfeff"
I've used this series of books before when planning a trip to Maui in 2008. That version was great. This version for Kauai feels disorganized and seriously lacking in information about the available accommodations. The zoomed in maps of the island showing the lodging sites and beaches are scattered in the front third of the book, while the accommodations section is in the very back. The resorts are numbered on the zoomed in maps but are not really in a logical order (beyond North, South, East, West) in the accommodations section, which wouldn't be as big of a problem, but I am just not good at remembering hawaiian names. The Web Review Only reviews are a real pain too. If I would have picked up this book at a store and looked at it, I would not have bought it. Try another book to learn about were you want to stay on Kauai.
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
The Best Guide book for HawaiiSep 01, 2010
By Fred
As a property owner and frequent visitor of Kauai for many years, I can assure you that the restaurant recommendations in this guide are the best I have seen by a fairly good margin. You do have to read the recommendations very carefully, because they put strong emphasis on getting your moneys worth. They also are very specific, for example if they tell you "order the fish at this plate, but not the beef", the fact that they gave it their "ono" (eat here) does not make the beef worthy of ordering. Several restaurants they refuse an "ono" are indeed overpriced and some of the "onos" are for places that fix only good, not great food but are bargains. By the way, one of the real bargains in Islands are the local foods such as Laulaus, Poki and Korean short ribs (as well as others). The same rules apply to beaches and Hikes, read the reviews and don't just go by the "onos". Their guides to other islands are similarly the best. The authors know Kauai better that the other islands because they live on Kauai, but they have the local insight to all the Islands tht makes these the best guidebooks to the Hawaiian Islands.
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